Three disabled folks live productive lives despite their challenges

They’re disabled — but they want you to treat them as ordinary people.

However, some of them are extraordinary.

Two Lenoir County residents and one former Kinstonian told their stories of achieving success, living their dreams and even raising families, despite crippling conditions.

Scott Broadway, Kerry Willis and Natalie Guffey all require the use of a wheelchair or walker to get around. They would be left with monumental medical bills they couldn’t pay if it weren’t for the help of government assistance.

Yet, all of them work hard, remain positive and encourage others.

Scott Broadway

Take Broadway, for instance. As coordinator of his own ministry with his wife Erin, he not only lives an active and fulfilling life, but he’s helping other disabled people to do so, too.

“I know there is a lot of misuse of governmental benefits,” he said. “I’m not denying that. But from age 14 up, I have always done something, whether it be volunteering or giving back in some way.”

Broadway, 31, was born premature and lacking oxygen, which caused him to develop cerebral palsy. He was given up for adoption to Murrell and Joan Rice Broadway.

Despite his challenges, he spent a number of years working at the family business, Rice Monuments, founded by his grandfather, the late Rev. Clifton Rice.

A doctor told his father he would not be able to have children. His own doctor told him he wasn’t supposed to have children.

Yet, the Broadways have a daughter, 5-year-old Rachel Elizabeth Broadway.

“The way I read the disease is, yes, I have a disease,” Broadway said. “But that’s only part of me. That’s not the whole person.”

A second-degree black belt in karate, judo and jiu jitsu, he once had a desire to be a computer programmer. But those pursuits are not where his passion lies now.

His grandfather once told him he would be a minister. It was far from his mind then, but in 1998, he began to feel like something was missing in his life.

In 2002, he founded Wheels on Fire for Christ, named for the wheels of God described in the Bible book of Daniel.

In February, he was the first minister to be ordained into the Original Free Will Baptist Church with a disability at the time of ordination.

The purpose is to promote awareness of disabilities, as well as to encourage disabled persons to promote awareness in their own churches.

“The main thing I want to share is,” he said, “life isn’t over just because you have a disability.”

One of the biggest challenges for a disabled person is worrying about what other people think and say about them. Another is the fear he or she won’t be able to succeed at a job or other life pursuit.

Broadway conducts workshops to help the disabled overcome their challenges and become productive.

“Do they want to work? Yes,” he said. “But if they keep focusing on what they can’t do, they wouldn’t get anything done.”

Though confined to a wheelchair, he and his wife travel frequently, conducting workshops and acting as a liaison between the disabled and the churches.

He didn’t think he could speak publicly until he considered Moses, who had a speech impediment, yet petitioned Pharaoh to free his enslaved people in Egypt.

“If you look hard enough,” Broadway said, “there’s something we can all do, especially for Jesus Christ and our community and our fellowman.”

Kerry Willis

You may have heard him on Internet radio.

A New York native, Willis, 48, has lived in Pink Hill for 18 years.

But his diabetes got the better of him and he had to have one of his legs amputated just below the knee more than three years ago because of the disease. He’s now confined to a wheelchair.

That doesn’t stop him. Willis is the owner and announcer of ENC HS Sports, a show on Blog Talk Radio that gives play by plays of high school games over the Internet on Friday nights.

A local DJ and former announcer at WELS-102.9 in Kinston, Willis has four volunteers who go on location as live announcers, while Willis announces from his home office, sells ads, answers call-ins and gives out trivia questions and prizes during half-time.

After the games, he breaks down the scores and interviews players and coaches. The show airs from 7:30-10:30 p.m.

“This year, we just passed 25,000 listeners,” he said.

He and his wife Glenda homeschool their 13-year-old grandson, Hassan Branton, who is eager to have his own radio show.

Willis is currently working with the N.C. Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services in Kinston so he can get back into the workforce. It’s difficult, he said.

“Basically, it’s up to the employer to have an understanding of what you can do and can’t do,” he said, “but a lot of people aren’t willing to do that.”

Getting full-time employment means giving up certain benefits, such as medical. There is a grace period where a disabled person can start the job, but will not lose their benefits if they can’t handle the job within a certain amount of time, Willis said.

Billy Ross is manager of the Greenville unit of Vocational Rehabilitation, which serves Lenoir County.

He said the Kinston office currently has 326 people who have an Individualized Plan for Employment developed and are eligible for services. For the fiscal year that ended Oct. 31, 84 people with IPEs successfully obtained and maintained employment, he wrote in an email.

“(People with IPEs are) “receiving treatment to stabilize their conditions to get to the point of being ready for work, in training — educational and/or vocational, actively looking for work, and some (are) actually in employment, but having not maintained it long enough to be considered successful,” Ross wrote.

For Willis, one night of work a week is not enough. He started the nonprofit Fin (Families in Need) Foundation.

“Basically, with the Fin Foundation,” he said, “we just try to help our neighbors and anybody in the community.”

It began when a storm in 2003 knocked an elderly woman’s tree down and shorted the power at his house.

“I found out she was eating peanut butter just to survive,” he said. Her house was falling apart with holes in the floor and she had no family.

After pulling some volunteers together to help her, he started his nonprofit in 2004 to help others in need. At the time, he lived in Kinston and used his current house as a ministry and a place to gather clothing, furniture and food.

Willis mowed lawns and assisted people in many ways. Then the tables turned when he underwent surgery on his foot.

“I didn’t think I would be the one to be in need,” he said. People came and mowed his lawn and built a handicap ramp.

Willis said getting a disability check is not living “high on the hog.”

“I would give up my disability if I had a full-time job,” he said.

Natalie Guffey

Some people don’t look like they are disabled.

Natalie Guffey, 36, looks and speaks like anyone else. But the Kinston native has a milder case of cerebral palsy.

“I can get around with a walker,” she said.

She graduated with honors from Bethel Christian Academy in 1995 and earned a degree in education from Southeastern Free Will Baptist College at Wendell in 1999.

She taught school in Ahoskie, worked in a crisis counseling center with Hope Ministries as a biblical counselor, married and moved to South Carolina, where she now lives.

She continued teaching school for a year until her doctor said she needed to take a break from the stress as she was having problems swallowing because of the condition.

“They told my mom I would never walk,” Guffey said. But she proved the doctors wrong.

Five years ago, she and her husband Chad had a son, Landon.

Guffey decided to be a stay-at-home mother. The couple also has a 10-month-old daughter Zana.

“But I haven’t let my disability stop me,” she said.

Today she homeschools her son, is active in her church and volunteers with Mothers of Preschoolers, a non-denominational, international group that helps women to be better mothers.

As a motivational and inspirational speaker, she talks to women’s groups and shares her story of dealing with the disability and relying on God.

“I can’t physically go out and do a 40-hour job,” she said. “… I just have limitations, but I’m still capable.”

Getting up early, walking and working are difficult for her. Sometimes, she uses a wheelchair. Her husband has a home-based job as a consultant so he can help her.

People with disabilities aren’t the only ones that have problems to deal with, but the problems are not the whole person — only a part, Guffey said.

“We still have a capable mind,” she said, “and we still have a heart.”

Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.

When you meet disabled people

Scott Broadway says:

Don’t be afraid to ask questions about the disability or how long they have been in a wheelchair

Speak directly to them, not to a third party

Don’t talk down to them or raise your voice as if they can’t hear

Don’t teach your children to avoid them

Treat them like anyone else; greet them and ask how they are doing

If they speak slowly, take time to listen

If they can’t speak, they likely can hear and understand

Having a disability doesn’t mean being mentally challenged

Even mentally-challenged persons have feelings, want friends

Kerry Willis says:

Offer assistance, but don’t try to do everything for them

Encourage them to do things on their own

Ask questions and let your children ask questions

Talk to them as you would anyone else

Don’t humiliate them with smirking and making faces

For information about the Fin Foundation, call Willis at 252-229-1781

Natalie Guffey says:

We’re just like everyone else

People with disabilities can have and raise children

Say hi or smile; don’t feel you always have to say something

A disability is not contagious

Don’t stare

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